


Fast (Moon is Breaking)

by euhemeria



Series: And, In Sign of Ancient Love, Their Plighted Hands They Join [75]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Introspection, Jewish Holidays, Religion, Yom Kippur | Atonement Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-27 02:28:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20940782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euhemeria/pseuds/euhemeria
Summary: When she tells a person that they will live, and she fails them, allows them to die—that is a lie, is it not?  She makes herself a liar with each promise she cannot possibly keep.  And lying, as she knows, is a sin.Or,Angela struggles with what it means to seek atonement, when one believes that they have done the unforgivable.





	Fast (Moon is Breaking)

**Author's Note:**

> **CW: for some mentions of fasting and food restriction**, mainly in a religious context and not in explicit detail. idk if they really are enough to necessitate a warning but u know, just in case...
> 
> hewwo its gonna be yom kippur here in a couple of hours so here is... a yom kippur fic ive been meaning to write since 2016 and always missing the boat on. but not this year! fourth times the charm
> 
> standard disclaimer here that altho i am jewish, angelas religious opinions in re: her own judaism dont entirely mirror my own. anyone who has enough of a god complex to resurrect ppl probably has one or two controversial religious opinions, imo. and i, uh, dont bring back the dead

To be the sort of martyr who would deem themself a hero, one must have a large personality, and a larger ego, and this can certainly be said of all the members of Overwatch, in these days, the Recall. They are all of them so sure in themselves, so sure in their ability to change the world for the better, so sure in their own ideals, their own actions, that they take little criticism. Many of them think themselves unimpeachable, and this is not helped by the fact that, to the public, they are mythical figures.

They are flawed like them, too.

Much like a Greek tragedy, each of the people in Angela’s life has a weakness, some fatal flaw that can be exploited, one that will ultimately lead to their own downfall. Some people are prone to vices, prone to excess, cannot help but overindulge in some pursuit or another, be it drink, glory, or even the pursuit of love. Angela does not fault any of them for this, cannot criticize them, for she, too, has her own problems that she struggles with, even if she does feel obligated, as the team doctor, to remind everyone that what they are doing is not _healthy_, insofar as she is able. Yes, she hates smoking, and yes, she tells Reinhardt he overexerts himself, tells some of them to drink less, but she understands, she does.

After all, Angela has her own vice, too.

Hers is this: denial.

Restriction.

Restraint.

While others overindulge, Angela never does, if she can avoid it. If she buys her favorite food, she will not eat it, leaves it in the fridge until it is near expiry for fear that, should she take one bite, she would eat it all at once, and then have nothing left for herself. If she is angry, she does not express it, not aloud, does not allow her voice to raise above cool disapproval for fear that if she starts yelling she will not stop, will not stop, will not _stop_, will be left screaming, screaming, screaming until her throat is raw and her voice is hoarse. Only alone does she weep, because she knows she cannot stop herself if she starts, knows that the sadness she feels each and every day will overwhelm her, will consume her, will well up over her and drown all those around her, too.

Even love, she spent most of her life avoiding, because she feared that if she let herself love, it would consume her.

(Perhaps this sounds more like an issue of immoderacy. After all, this is what Angela fears more than anything, an inability to regulate herself, to behave as she feels humans _ought _to, to exist within the parameters of wider society. She is afraid that she is too much for people, that she goes too far, feels too strongly, and it makes her not only unlovable but unlikable. But this fear is unfounded. Although it is true that she feels intensely, when she does express her emotions, she expresses them so rarely that, in fact, she cries less often than most, screams less, even _eats _less, if she is not careful.)

So she denies herself, turns away many of the pleasures that might otherwise be available to her, and she considers this a good thing, thinks it prudent, thinks it smart. She does not believe that she does not deserve those things, not really but she _does _believe that she cannot handle it, to be tempted.

That she is in fact denying temptation far more than the average person by engaging in this self-denial is entirely lost on her.

Never does she feel better about herself than when she does not do something she wants to, does not give into the part of herself that she seeks pleasure, never is she more proud, more pleased. It is a victory, for her, to know that she is strong enough to do so, to ignore her own humanity and to be something better, something greater.

All people have two souls, this Angela knows. Her faith has taught her that there is a divine soul, one that is greater than one’s body, one that will survive this life and transcend it, eventually, if only she does what is right, follows the rules her God has set out for her, and does so with good intention.

(For intent does matter, in things such as this. It is not for her just to do, but to do joyously. It is not just for her to give, but to give willingly. It is not for her just to preserve life, but to protect it.)

There is, too, an animal soul, something baser, something not _wrong_, not wicked, not evil or wanting—just base. That animal soul is far more concerned with the needs of the body, with a desire for touch, for food, for warmth, things that Angela has no time for, will not give herself over to. There would be nothing wrong with doing so, she knows, if it happened on occasion. People have two souls for a reason; they are not divine.

But Angela has always _strived _for divinity, it is right there in her name. This is what she chose for herself, to be something greater, to be the help to others that her parents needed, during the Crisis, to save humanity from itself. This is not sacrilegious, either, not in the way it would be for many faiths. Rather, she considers it an extension of tikkun olam, the purpose of man on this earth, the very reason for which God made a covenant with her people: to heal the world, so that one day they might again be worthy of God’s grace, and see the return of eternity, and peace, the end to all suffering.

So it is not an impossible thing, she believes, to be so divine.

(There are, of course, flawed gods, the Greek ones, and the Celtic. They fought among each other, warred, were so consumed by their petty squabbles that they could do nothing to help the world they created, but that is not _Angela’s _God. Angela’s God created man with the potential for perfection, and when they achieve it—when, not if—then they will have proven themselves worthy, again, and that is what she intends to do.)

It is not impossible, but it is _hard._

And that she likes, the challenge, even as she rues the fact that it is so difficult for her. What she knows is that it must be possible, and that she takes with her, and thinks that if it is difficult—well, that must be a sign that she is doing a good thing, is resisting the instincts of her animal soul.

Would her rabbi agree with her? Probably not. But she knows the old saying, two Jews, three opinions, and tries to not worry over that too much.

What is important is that she does what is right, that she fills both of man’s greatest purposes, to preserve life and to heal the world. 

If that takes some unhappiness, what of it?

There is, of course, a deeper motivation here, is something else at play, if only she will allow herself to acknowledge it. Yes, Angela thinks she needs to deny herself her animal instincts in order to do something greater, to be something greater, and that in so doing she will avert others’ suffering, but at the heart of _that _is that she believes that her own happiness is not as important as that of others, that she ought to suffer such that others do not.

It is impossible for Angela to believe that she _deserves _happiness, much of the time.

(Yes, it is better to do good joyfully, but the happiness she takes is not joy herself, but pride in the fact that she has done what is right, that she has made others happy. That is enough, it has to be.)

This is not because she thinks she is a bad person, or that there is nothing worth love or happiness about her. It is not that she does not _want _to be happy, that she has some sort of martyr complex—although she understands why it may seem so, from the outside.

Instead, simple math is what drives Angela.

One woman’s happiness is not worth the happiness of all the others she might help, by sacrificing a bit of her own time. Why should it matter, that she wants an hour or two more of sleep, when the research she could be doing has the potential to change the lives of millions? Truly, what is one woman’s comfort in the face of that?

So she _is _proud of it, that ability to deny herself, if she wants to, to suppress her desires in order to do something that surely anyone would agree is better than indulging herself.

Is it good for her? Not particularly, and she knows this, is careful not to deny herself _too _much, too often, makes sure she has the energy she needs to function, and destresses enough that she will not break under pressure. But beyond that? 

Beyond that, for years, there was nothing. Nothing but her work, and her drive to do better, be better, to be something more than simply human, or, if she must be one, to be the best human possible. It was not good for her, perhaps, not an enviable life, but what she accomplished in those years cannot be denied, even by her greatest detractors, and sometimes—sometimes she wants that life back.

Yes, she was not as happy then as she is now, not as well-rested, not as cheerful, not as ready to face a new day, but at least, then, she could sleep at night, knowing she did all she could. At least, then, when she lost a patient, she knew that she could not have possibly spent any more time doing research, could not have made any more progress on her nanites.

Like so many other things, that was taken from her by the explosion at the old Swiss Headquarters, and therefore, taken from her by Overwatch.

Now, she cannot force herself into a lab, any longer, cannot do the work that she once might have there, can only save the lives which she can touch with her hands, rather than improving medicine in such a way that the very future of humanity will be built upon what it is that she has achieved. 

She tries, she _tries_, but no amount of acknowledging that there are things more important than her own happiness can stop her from feeling the heat of the flames on her skin, the broken glass embedded in her palms and knees, the burning of her face where the chemicals she was working with had splashed upon her. She tries, and no amount of will can force those memories away.

So she denies herself what she can, now, regains some measure of control by locking down her emotions as much as is possible, by not letting herself eat the things she enjoys too quickly or too often, by not spending as much time with the people she cares about as she would like to. It makes her feel like she has _some _power still, over her life, that she is not solely beholden to the terrified, animal part of herself.

But that, too, is unsustainable. There are things she cannot deny herself. When she tries to never show anger, it only builds, and it builds, until finally, privately, it explodes, where no one can see it, and she can no longer even scream, only shake and sob with it. When she tries never to feel sadness, it grows, and it grows, until she can do nothing, spends an entire day pinned to her bed by the weight of it, and wastes all that time. When she tries never to pursue love, she finds it, and falls _hard._

And that is a good thing, it is, loving Fareeha, but Fareeha will not allow her to indulge in her greatest vice, grows concerned when she knows Angela is deliberately denying herself something, thinks it is a bad thing.

Maybe it is. 

But it is so hard to accept that she might be only human, only ordinary, because that means that she is only able to do so much, only able to help so many, is unable to protect others from falling victim to the same fate as befell her, is unable to bring an end to suffering, can only alleviate it, for the time being, before the people whom she helps are doomed to suffer again.

(That is another conundrum entirely. If she saves a person, only for them to kill, and to suffer longer, then has she truly saved them? Or only prolonged their suffering? Is it a mercy? Genji may have asked her to let him walk again, may be thankful for what it is she did, may be her friend, and more at peace with himself now, but if he had been killed on that mission in Rialto, so many years ago, he would not have known happiness again, would only have suffered longer as the result of her interference. And she wonders, sometimes—what is the true impact of her work? How many have suffered at the hands of those she saved, how many have been killed? How can she ever atone for that?)

But she does accept it, eventually, as much as she can, as much as _anyone _can, still tries to fight her limitations at times, but comes to find happiness in doing what she can, even if she can never quite free herself from the shame and the guilt of failure. And there is something good here, is some joy to be had.

With Fareeha, when she allows herself to be, she can be happier than she ever truly was when she was the most dedicated to her work. She was purer then, yes, was something almost more than human, something beyond the limitations of her flesh, but like this—now she is truly _living _rather than just existing. 

With Fareeha in her life, there is color, is uncertainty, variance in her routine, is all the mess of emotions, and with it, all the pleasure of them. No more clean white living space, no more same rotation of fourteen dinners, no more pushing all her feelings away entirely. Now, her world is wider, and she knows that she appreciates it more, that her world is better for it.

And is that not its own way of healing the world? Seeing it as something beautiful? 

And what is so wrong with being human? This is how she was created, what she was meant to be. Yes, she has never been content, entirely, with the life she was born into, chose to transition, and then to try and become, too, more than human, but embracing the woman she always was and trying to defy her human nature entirely are two very different things. 

(And did her parents not die for their humanity? Were they not killed for it? What would it mean, then, for their child to try and become something else? Angela is no omnic—she has needs, and wants, and it is high time she came to accept that.)

So, perhaps, it is not so terrible, coming to embrace her humanity, not such a betrayal of her ideals. But it still feels that way, sometimes, still feels like she is doing something wrong by not doing as much as she possibly can for other people.

She still feels it gnawing at her heels, that guilt, even as she runs towards the next project, still remembers the faces of so many of the people she failed to save, the names, the voices, remembers the promises she gave them, that she never could fulfill. When she tells a person that they will live, and she fails them, allows them to die—that is a lie, is it not? She makes herself a liar with each promise she cannot possibly keep.

And lying, as she knows, is a sin.

So, too, is coveting, is _wanting_ improperly. But she cannot find it, cannot find that balance between not wanting at all, and wanting too much. Both are wrong, both are immoderate, are not living as she was intended to. She can be neither all divine nor all animal, is meant to be a _human_, and worries about not striking that balance right, worries about what it means for her, that her soul should be so fragmented.

Her greatest concern, however, is her greatest sin of all: she has killed. Yes, to kill to protect oneself or not another is not a sin, is in keeping with pikuach nefesh, is preserving life, ultimately, and therefore an exception and not a rule, but action is only one way to sin.

Through inaction, also, has she killed. She has failed to save others because she was afraid of what they would do, if they lived, and she has not spent as much time as she ought in trying to advance her technology in order save more lives, setting that aside for the sake of her fear, and she has, worst of all, failed to prevent those she saved from causing more deaths, has healed them so completely that they go on to kill countless others.

Gabriel is such a one. She did not make him what he is today, counts that as Moira’s responsibility more than her own, but had she not saved him before he ever recruited Moira, had not removed shrapnel from his body, and a tumor from his lungs, then he would not lived to have been made into the Reaper, would not have lived to destroy Overwatch, to join Talon, to murder so many of the people about whom Angela cares.

There is much for which she must atone.

And today is the time for that, a fast for atonement. It suits her better than any other holiday, not to consume or to be consumed but instead to allow herself to _not _consume, to fall back into the old habits of denial, of restriction, of restraint, to make herself pure, holy, whole, by taking away all the bad parts of herself, stripping away all which makes her human for just twenty-five hours. No food, nor drink, nor work, nor shower, nor romance, only prayer and contemplation.

More than any other, this is a holiday that makes _sense _to Angela, that fits with how she conceives of herself in the world, that the celebration of which is not a temptation but a lack of it.

For others, she knows, it is tempting, the lack of food, the lack of water, the lack of cleanliness, but Angela has a lifetime of practice going without things. First, she had no choice, with the Crisis, and then she forwent as much as possible, in the old Overwatch, and then she travelled with MSF, and gave as much as she could to those with more need than she. This lacking is something familiar, and almost comforting to her, is something she knows what to do with. 

Is that right? Is that as her God intended? She does not know.

She doubts it, knows that to atone ought to mean to suffer for her wrongs, but this feels _right _for her, is no suffering at all. But although intention matters, actions matter more than intent. Hers is an orthopraxic religion, not an orthodoxic one, and she does not stray from practicing as she ought. It is familiar ritual, she wears all white, clothes pure and new, goes to the shul, and does her best to apologize to those who are still alive and around to forgive her, to confess her sins against them in the hopes that they will forgive.

If they do not—she can accept that, she must. It is for no one but the victim to decide whether or not one should be forgiven for a sin against another person, and she cannot resent them if they do not want to extend to her forgiveness, cannot even blame many of them.

(Genji has forgiven her, did years ago, long before he ever found the Shambali. He was angry then, overcome by desire for vengeance, but still, he forgave, and it is something for which she can never thank him enough. She does not know that she would have forgiven herself—not for the cybernetics, which she would have gladly taken, and to which Genji consented—but for the very act of resurrection. When she saved Genji, he had nothing to live for, few prospects for a happy life, and she chose to sin against her fellow man, and not her God, brought Genji back when there was little for him to come back to.)

No, she does not resent the living who choose not to forgive her; it is not as if she could achieve complete atonement in any case, for she has killed, and has failed to save, and has enabled others to kill. The victims of those crimes cannot ever forgive her, have not the chance to live long enough to forgive, and she knows that, when her time comes, _she _would have no mercy left for herself, were she one of them. 

But she does what she can, seeks atonement from her God, at least, for her sins which were against now her fellow man, but the divine. There are many of those, as well, far too many to count. Sins of accident, or circumstance, mostly, but a few sins of intention, and those, she knows, are worst of all. 

Just 613 rules—many of which do not apply to the world in which she lives—and she cannot follow them all. Surely, there must be at least as many conduct rules in Overwatch, and ethical guidelines, and laboratory procedures, and with those, she never errs, stays always on the right side of the law.

So why for these most important laws can she not do so?

No, it was foolish of her to ever aspire to divinity. There is no joy in being divine, after all, for God must kill, God must punish, God must choose whom to save and whom to allow to die. All of these are things that Angela has done, but she has hated it, hated doing it all. 

To kill, to her, even when it _is _justified, even when it is in accordance with the mitzvot, feels so deeply _wrong_, leaves her shaken, shaking, guilty and upset for days on end, wondering what she could have done differently to avoid this eventuality. God cannot hesitate to kill, cannot balk when the wicked must be punished, cannot flinch from that duty. Angela could never do that, would lack the strength, would wonder, always, if that person might have changed, had she given them just a little longer, might have redeemed themself and done some good.

(It is true that God knows the hearts of men, but to know what one is at the moment is not to know their future, and free will makes such impossible.)

To punish, too, eludes her. Angela far prefers to allow people the chance to be rehabilitated, such that if theirs was a crime of ignorance or accident they might atone. When has a soul completed their purpose? How might she decide which souls need which purposes, which are deserving of terrible things, and which deserve an easier, shorter task?

(God does give a chance to atone, on this the day of Yom Kippur, and on the days immediately before, and God has given man a second chance, allow them to try to heal the world and to earn their place again in the garden. But this atonement requires that they work over generations, and Angela has not the heart to separate families for that long—it is bad enough to be separated now, in life.)

To choose whom to save and whom to allow to die she can do, has done, and will continue to do, but this weighs upon her most of all. She lacks the certainty of the divine, has not the ability to make a decision and to know it is right. Even as she has conviction in her choices publicly, even as she maintains her positions, refuses to back down when she knows she is right, or at least feels that way—there are times it keeps her up at night, choices which, years ago, she would have been certain were right and now… she wonders. God cannot falter, does not.

(God does not sleep, has no physical form to need such things, is greater than any mortal could ever be, but if God _could _do so, Angela knows there would be no tossing and turning before sleep. Even with instructions, rules to follow, the Torah and the Talmud both, Angela cannot be so decisive. If it fell to her to make the rules, she would not know what to do.)

Strength, Angela has prayed for, decisiveness and judgement too, and she has been granted them, in some measure, is certainly more strong-willed than most, and more able to reason through choices and stick to her positions, but it is not enough, could never be enough for her to become the sort of person she once strove to be. Over everything, she values mercy, and her God needs to be wrathful, at times, and vengeful, too.

So she will fall short of that goal, again and again and again and again. 

This does not mean it is not worthwhile to strive for perfection, to be the best person she can, but she realizes, with the peculiar clarity that hunger sometimes imbues in the short term, that pursuit of perfection need not always mean the pursuit of the impossible, of some kind of divinity. One need not be more than human to be successful in one’s task in life—in fact, in so doing one inherently fails, because one’s humanity is a part of one’s task.

It is freeing, that realization that she could never have been the woman she tried so hard to be, that no matter what she did, no matter how dedicated she was, she was doomed to fail, could never have achieved the goals she set for herself. She feels weightless, in that moment, dizzy, breathless.

(But it is sobering, too, to come to this realization, to know that there are more people who will die by her hand, directly or indirectly, and more terrible choices to come. No matter what she does, she cannot avoid this, cannot escape her fate as a human, to err. Grief hovers at the edge her awareness, then, for her past self wasting so much time, for the suffering her future self will surely endure, and her limbs feel heavier than they ought.)

Maybe that is just the thirst.

In this moment, however, when she denies herself only what her God has asked of her, follows the rules to the letter, everything _feels _clear, what it is she was meant to do, and what it is she will have to accomplish, still, before her soul can leave this world. Mercy she has had in spades, forgiveness for others, and for her God, having put her here, but none for herself.

On this, the Day of Atonement, Angela wonders if, all along, it is herself she has needed to atone to, herself she has needed to forgive. 

She cannot do so yet, cannot make the decision over the course of only ten days, as her God does, but she can begin the process of trying, and hope that when her name is sealed at sundown in the Book of Life, that there will be time enough left for her to learn to start forgiving herself.

So she says the last Shema, dances, listens to the blowing of the shofar. _Next year in Jerusalem._

Rather than to the house of a friend, or another congregant, she goes back to base—home to Fareeha—and breaks her fast there. It ought to be a joyous time, and she is happy, she is, even as she contemplates her future. Yom Kippur is over, but her atoning is not. There is still much she must do in order to forgive herself.

But she knows, too, when Fareeha notices she is somber, pulls her into a comforting embrace, and says she is here, always, if Angela needs to talk—she knows that she has started, already, to forgive herself, to be kinder. She must have, to have allowed herself to fall in love, must have allowed herself to feel again, must have, to have allowed herself to have the time to set aside for love.

That is human, to be in love, is proof of her humanity, is proof that even if she feels that all along she has been doing a terrible job of this, of being a human being, there must be something that she was doing correctly, something to have found a love so wonderful as this. 

So she will try, will try to atone to herself for the damage she has done, in attempting to be something she could never be, to forgive herself for her shortcomings, for her failures, for the pain she caused herself and others by being unable to grant mercy to herself.

To be able to truly forgive herself, to be free of her demons, is a long way off. After so long denying herself, it will be difficult to be able to let forgiveness in. But she will, she will try, and she knows that Fareeha will be here for her, every step of the way, for as long as she has left.

Like this, being human suddenly seems feasible, and not only that, desirable.

If it felt right to deny herself, to try and strip away her humanity, felt right when she was fasting and long, long beyond that, but it feels even more right to love Fareeha, to be here with her. 

This, this happiness, this love, she need not stop herself from having.

**Author's Note:**

> hopefully u enjoyed & that this made sense to u, lmao
> 
> sorry i havent uploaded anything in a while, ive mostly just been posting links to stuff on twitter all hush hush bc idk. i havent felt like putting anything on ao3. but i couldnt miss yom kippur AGAIN or id kick myself


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